The Informers

The typical Bret Easton Ellis character is spoiled, amoral, shallow, promiscuous and beautiful—they’re not supposed to be likable, but they should at least have a sick fascination (American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction). However, Aussie director Gregor Jordan’s The Informers, co-scripted by Ellis from his collection of short stories, makes even glamorous moral decay seem uninteresting. Jordan’s films (Buffalo Soldiers, Ned Kelly) have been more concerned with pictorial pizazz than coherent story and character, so he would seem ideally suited for this glitter-struck anthology of emotional numbness and sexual vapidity in 1980s Los Angeles. Unfortunately, there’s hardly a single scene that doesn’t devolve into torpor, and Jordan draws tragically uninvolved performances from a cast of unknowns (Lou Taylor Pucci, Jon Foster, Amber Heard) and veterans (Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke).